Fallen Angel of Mine (45 page)

I closed the door behind me and let
loose a depressed sigh. I should be thankful for the big blessings
now, I thought. Capturing Vadaemos was huge. Maybe this would help
Elyssa come back into my life. Such rationalization didn't quite
ease the knot of pain in my chest.

Someone knocked on my door. I opened it
and saw Elyssa standing there, fury coiled on her face like a
dragon.

I offered her a smile.

She punched me so hard I saw
stars.

I staggered back, holding my jaw where
she'd almost dislocated it. She shoved me and I flipped over a
vinyl chair, knocking over the flimsy table next to it. The door
slammed. I looked up into blazing violet eyes.

"Whatever you're doing to me, stop it."
Her voice was low and dangerous.

"Doing to you?"

She grabbed my shirt and pulled me to
my feet. "Don't even try to lie your way out of it. I can't be
feeling this. You're doing something to me."

I took in a hopeful breath. "Feeling
what?"

Her grip on my shirt tightened and her
eyes grew larger with anger. "You know very well what I'm talking
about." Her voice lowered to a whisper. "You're doing it again.
What my dad said you did to me the first time."

"I'm not doing anything, I
swear!"

She growled. "As if I'd ever get the
truth from you. If only—" Her mouth went slack as if something had
suddenly occurred to her. Her hand went toward a bulge in my
pants—and pulled my phone out of the front pocket. Another shove
sent me somersaulting backwards over the bed. "You might lie to me,
but your texts won't."

My texts? I had no texts on my phone.
After my embarrassing drunk texting incident with Katie, I'd erased
them all. All except for a few Elyssa and I had exchanged. I didn't
bother trying to stop her. There was nothing on my phone to
vindicate or condemn me that I knew of.

She stared at the screen, all the while
keeping half an eye on me. I just took a seat on the bed and let
her have at it. "What's this?" she said after a few moments. "A
file with my name?" A voice crackled in my phone speaker and the
glow of the phone reflected in her eyes.

"This is Elyssa Borathen. I am of sound
mind. You may think I'm crazy, but I'm not. Elyssa, hopefully
you've found this. The story I'm about to tell you may seem insane,
but it's true. Your father wiped your mind, not because you did
anything wrong, but because he couldn't control you. Because he
couldn't stop you from falling in love."

Elyssa stared in horror as her past
self told her current self everything she'd forgotten.

"Justin looks harmless," said the voice
from the past. "In fact, I felt sorry for him the first time I saw
him. But then he showed me an inner strength I didn't know he had.
Before he ever came into his supernatural abilities, he was
standing up to bullies and making friends with Ash and Nyte." She
continued, her sad voice making a complete outline of our
relationship from her perspective. So much of what she said
mystified me. I'd never heard what I was like from someone else's
perspective, especially in such an open and brutally honest
way.

"I asked myself a million times how I
could let some guy do this to me," her voice continued. "Make me
feel this way. Then I stopped fighting it. The war was over because
Justin had already won my heart."

Elyssa clicked off the recording a
moment later. Tears clouded her big violet eyes. She looked at me
with an almost amazed expression. "I've heard enough," she said,
voice trembling.

My heart melted under her gaze. I
wanted so badly to kiss those lips and taste the salt of her tears.
To hug her and tell her it was true. I loved her. She used to love
me. "Maybe you should watch the whole thing."

She shook her head and stood up. Left
the phone on the bed and walked my way. "No. I really don't need
to." She sat down next to me, leaned in, and kissed me gently on
the lips. "I already know it's the truth. I can feel
it."

I pulled her tight against me. Kissed
her hard. I tasted her tears and maybe one or two of my own. She
gasped as I ran a string of kisses up her neck. Nipped her ear.
Pulled her down on the bed with me.

Our breathing grew heavier, our
movements frantic with need. She ripped my shirt over my head. I
fumbled with hers, tugging it off and running kisses down her bare
skin and around the curve of her bra. She shuddered. Gasped.
Grabbed my back and pulled me against her, fingernails digging into
my skin. We tore at each other's remaining clothes until we were
naked, our bodies pressed tight. Heat radiated from her bare skin,
filling me with electric desire. It seemed I could sense everything
right down to the very molecules of her delicious curves while my
pulse seemed to pound in my ears.

My inner demon, the incubus,
practically slavered with desire. The elemental force clawed with
fury as I fought to keep it in check. As I fought to keep it from
reaching for the shimmering halo of essence emanating from Elyssa's
form. My physical body was more than ready. Every part of me begged
for sweet release. I felt drunk with desire for her.

I stopped. Took several deep breaths to
clear my head before I took the irrevocable step, which would leave
us both deflowered.

"What's wrong?" she asked, as
breathless as I was. "Justin?"

I ran a hand through the hair on her
temple, reaching my hand to the back of her head and leaning in for
another delicious kiss. My inner demon surged against the wall of
my will. "I've wanted this for so long," I said at last. "Are you
sure you want this? I mean, you don't even remember—"

She pressed a finger to my
lips. Smiled. Her full lips parted to show straight white teeth and
the tips of her fangs as they extended ever so slightly. "I feel as
though I've loved you since forever was born. I don't know why. I
don't know how. All I know is I want you in the here and now. I
want to
be
with
you, body and soul."

The demon inside me suddenly stopped
its struggles and vanished, leaving me alone with my own feelings.
It understood carnal lust. It didn't seem to understand true love.
I nodded, unable, at first, to speak. "Too much has tried to keep
us apart. This is right. We're right." I ran my hand along her bare
skin, marveling at the beauty in every inch. Kissed her soft lips.
Felt the sting of her fang on my lip. Not a shred of doubt
remained. "I love you."

She was mine. I was hers. And this was
right.

Sometime later as we lay beneath the
covers, snuggled in each other's arms, she pressed a hand to my
cheek and gave a sad little smile. "I wish I could remember,
Justin. I want to remember."

"I want you to remember, too." My brain
was working overtime on that problem. "If Daelissa is actually the
Templar Divinity and the crazy angel behind all this, I don't know
how we can make her fix it."

"I don't either." She ran a hand down
my bare chest, her eyes following her fingers. Her eyes jerked back
up, as if she'd been caught doing something naughty. Which she
had—we both had. Several times. "I keep having these dreams. I'm
trapped in a house while a dark-haired girl tries to get inside
through a foggy glass door. Out the front door, everything is
sunshine and flowers. But the backyard is cloudy and rainy. The
girl in back could be the twin of that blonde woman in El
Dorado."

"The huge mosaic?" I said.

She nodded.

I told her about my dream with
Nightliss and the blonde woman, aka Daelissa.

"What is it with those two?" she
asked.

"All I know is Nightliss seems to be
the good one, even if she doesn't have such a great grasp of the
English language." A sudden thought hit me. "Maybe she can fix your
erased memories. Maybe that's why you keep having that
dream."

Her eyes went wide. "Do you
think?"

I almost jumped out of bed from
excitement, but realized I had no idea how to find my guardian
angel who sometimes turned into a little black cat. "I have to
figure out how to contact her though."

A familiar noise penetrated the wall
opposite our bed and for the third time that night, we heard my
female neighbor shout the same exact words over and over again in a
slightly less than enthusiastic voice.

Elyssa giggled. Her eyes went wide and
nose wrinkled. She sat up, holding the sheets against her chest. "I
just thought of something really gross."

"Even more gross than that?" I jerked
my head toward the noises next door.

"At least." She took two fingers and
gingerly pulled at the bed's coverlet.

I grimaced when I realized what she was
thinking. "I'll bet that comforter looks like a warzone under an
ultraviolet lamp."

She made a gagging noise. "Will you
take it off?"

I grinned. "Sure thing, love." I'd just
slipped out of the covers when our neighbor yelled, "That's it
baby!" one last time and went silent. I heard the sounds of several
car doors clicking shut and the rustle of numerous feet on the
pavement outside.

Police raid? I wondered. I blurred to
the window, ignoring my nakedness and peeked outside. What I saw
froze my heart solid. I backed away as panic took flight up my
throat.

"What's wrong?" Elyssa said, hopping
out of bed and slipping into her clothes at light speed.

"Your dad is here!" I hissed
back, and raced to put on my own clothes. Sure, I'd wanted to
hand-deliver Vadaemos to him, but I sure as heck didn't want him
showing up right after his daughter and I had just deflowered each
other.
Perfect timing as usual.
"Did Michael call him?"

She shook her head. "No, he
specifically told me he'd escort us both to the ranch
tomorrow."

"Then how—" the question died on my
lips as I peeked out the window to see Beck standing outside with
the intimidating form of Thomas Borathen and pointing approximately
at Meghan's door. I had to go out there. "Wait here a few minutes,
and see if you can get out without them realizing—"

Elyssa put a finger on my lips.
"Already planned to, hot shot. Just in reverse order." She kissed
me hard before slipping out of the room and vanishing.

I squinted through the blinds again.
None of the arriving Templars seemed to have spotted her. Taking a
few deep breaths, and loosening up my clenched butt cheeks, I
stepped outside and walked with bold purpose toward a man who
probably wouldn't hesitate to kill me, so long as he had a lawful
reason to do so. I prayed he didn't have sufficient cause to
execute me in front of the others.

Meghan and Adam stood outside their
door blocking the way to Vadaemos while Thomas Borathen glared at
them.

"What's wrong with you people?" Beck
said. "Let him in and we'll be out of your hair."

I suppressed the desire to sock Beck
right in the noggin and instead, shoved him sideways. He didn't
even see me coming and hit the ground with a satisfying thud. I
turned and faced the ice-cold glare from a man who wanted to
separate my head from my shoulders.

"You," he said in a hiss. "What's the
meaning of this?"

"He's the one who captured him," said a
deep voice from my right.

I glanced and caught sight of
Michael.

"Not only that, but he and your
daughter saved our lives," Bella said, coming to stand next to
Michael’s towering form, her face still pale.

"You've infected them all," Thomas
snarled.

"He hasn't infected anyone, Father."
Elyssa stepped from the shadows behind the group of twenty or so
Templars who'd shown up with Thomas.

"Elyssa?" said one of the masked
figures. The mask retracted to show a young guy who was the
spitting image of her father.

She graced him with an embarrassed
smile. "Hey, Jack. Guess I'm back a little earlier than
expected."

"Where have you been? You were supposed
to be in Paris but nobody over there has seen a trace of
you."

"Wait a minute, you mean you didn't
re-route me to Colombia?"

"That would be my doing," Michael said,
staring Jack down with a grim but satisfied smile.

Jack looked genuinely
shocked.

Thomas Borathen slid a slivery sword
from its sheath and pointed the tip toward me. "How do you know
this spawn isn't in league with Vadaemos? That this isn't all some
part of an elaborate scheme to destroy us from the
inside?"

"Stop looking for conspiracies when the
truth is right in front of your eyes," I said. I turned to Meghan
and nodded.

She opened the door. Adam went in and
carted out the slumbering form of Vadaemos. I pulled out my phone,
which I'd thankfully had the presence of mind to retrieve, and
clicked on the video I'd taken in the cave. The quality wasn't all
that great, but Elyssa and I had watched it and agreed it was
definitely incriminating.